{"id":129133,"date":"2014-05-23T11:30:00","date_gmt":"2014-05-23T15:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/premium.wpmudev.org\/blog\/?p=129133"},"modified":"2014-05-30T01:30:30","modified_gmt":"2014-05-30T05:30:30","slug":"meet-the-wpmu-dev-design-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/meet-the-wpmu-dev-design-team\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the WPMU DEV Design Team \u2013 Plus a Sneak Peak at Our Upcoming WordPress Themes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our design team is changing what you see at\u00a0WPMU DEV. Meet the guys quietly pushing pixels behind the scenes \u2013 and working on some truly exciting new products.<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s rarely a quiet moment when music isn’t playing at WPMU DEV headquarters.<\/p>\n

The National, Nick Cave, Little Wings and\u00a0\u2013 if UX Lead\u00a0Joji Mori has his\u00a0way \u2013 ’80s power ballads are on high rotation.<\/p>\n

\"Oshik<\/a>
Designer Oshik Harari has an incredible knowledge of music.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

No doubt visitors to our office by the beach in Melbourne think our office is like a stereotypical internet startup, but in our office where more than half of the staff are designers, it’s more about fuelling their creativity.<\/p>\n

Oshik Harari, like our other designers, keeps tabs on design trends but also looks\u00a0to film, books and art for inspiration.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryday I have a different playlist in my head that sets the mood for the rest of the day,\u201d Oshik says.<\/p>\n

“Since my early childhood, music has been my main inspiration.”<\/p>\n

The same too goes for Product Lead Victor Ivanov\u00a0who admires designers and agencies like Teehan+Lax, Information Architects and onformative, but also takes inspiration\u00a0from\u00a0literature and even awe-inspiring images taken by the Hubble telescope.<\/p>\n

Still, he says he’s\u00a0obsessed with typography and type design and has a plethora of type specimen books on hand.<\/p>\n\n

The WPMU DEV Design Team<\/h2>\n
\"Victor<\/a>
Product Lead Victor Ivanov has a penchant for whisky.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Unlike our developer team which is distributed around the world, our design team is based entirely in Melbourne, Australia.<\/p>\n

Victor, our longest serving designer, joined the company after working at a digital marketing agency as an interaction designer.<\/p>\n

He has worked across every aspect of the business, but over the past 1.5 years he has been Product Lead on our upcoming\u00a0new themes project, which is set for release later this year.<\/p>\n

“This mainly involves research, conceptualizing, writing elaborate specifications for each feature, prototyping, UI and UX design, user testing and bug reporting, arguing with our CEO James Farmer and a dash of product management,\u201d Victor says.<\/p>\n

Oshik originally studied photography at an art academy before working as a 3D photographer and training clients around the world in 3D software.<\/p>\n

He says he found himself taking on more personal projects and helping people develop their business identity. He went on to complete a Master in Multimedia and worked in Melbourne\u2019s startup scene.<\/p>\n

At Incsub, he has been\u00a0involved in all aspects of the company\u2019s look and feel.<\/p>\n

\"Lilly<\/a>
Lilly and Ruby, one of Oshik’s upcoming theme designs.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“My job is spread over a wide spectrum of projects from designing themes, branding new products we develop, designing plugin interfaces and support WPMU DEV and Edublogs sites,\u201d Oshik says.<\/p>\n

Designer Julian Savio\u00a0is also working on some stunning and upcoming themes, though his main focus at the moment is our new WPMU DEV academy, which\u00a0will be launched soon.<\/p>\n


\n

\"Theme<\/a>
Another of Oshik’s designs for our new theme project.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

The academy will allow anyone to learn how to become a top-notch developer.<\/p>\n

Our UX Lead Joji joined the team last year after many years working in usability, user experience and interaction design.<\/p>\n

His is a new role \u2013 and one that requires a little interpretation.<\/p>\n

“I talk with support staff and attempt to engage with our end users to find out what they are hoping for with a new feature or product,” Joji says.<\/p>\n

“I work on either wireframing up ideas, often with teams including support\/visual designers\/developers who all get to contribute to design.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen throughout this process we have checkpoints and end user testing so we ensure end users are at forefront of what we make.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joji is currently working on re-conceptualising some of our major plugins, particularly Membership and in time plugins such as Appointments +.<\/p>\n

“Some plugins need to be simplified\/made more intuitive, some need new features and some are being built from scratch,\u201d he\u00a0says.<\/p>\n

\"Joji<\/a>
UX Lead Joji Mori. Our designers like to wear black shirts.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“So my role is to ensure we have teams, processes and techniques so we can provide useful, usable, and satisfying experiences with all our plugins.\u201d<\/p>\n

On top of his work at WPMU DEV, Joji is also\u00a0writing\u00a0a PhD thesis about digital technology and commemoration.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s Next?<\/h2>\n

From themes and developer courses to\u00a0improving the\u00a0user experience for our 140+ plugins, our small team of designers have their work cut out for them.<\/p>\n

We recently advertised for a new designer who will hopefully join the team soon and will be tasked with working on new themes.<\/p>\n

Let’s hope he has good taste in music.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re releasing a new post each week to give a little insight into WPMU DEV, who we are, what we\u2019re doing and where we\u2019re taking our members.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Past posts in this series:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Part 1: How an English Lit. Grad. Who Didn\u2019t Know PHP from FTP Bootstrapped a Successful WordPress Company<\/a>.<\/strong>
\n Part 2: Meet the WPMU DEV-elopers<\/a>.<\/strong>
\n Part 3: Why WPMU DEV Has the BEST Support in the WordPress Community. Period<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

See you next time for part five in our WPMU DEV series.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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